


Plain As Day

by jenny_of_oldstones



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Injuries, more or less
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-18 10:12:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7310812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenny_of_oldstones/pseuds/jenny_of_oldstones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Inquisitor is a difficult man to read. Fortunately, fighting demons in the Emerald Graves has a way of hitting the hard issues right on the nose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plain As Day

“Cover me!” Trevelyan shouted.

The Inquisitor fade-stepped past Dorian like a giant hornet. He zigzagged across the battlefield in a blue blur and skidded to a halt under the open rift. His hand raised, and magic sparked between his open palm and the roar of the Fade, drawing the tattered threads of the Veil together in a tightly braided rope.

The noise was incredible. 

So incredible, in fact, that Trevelyan did not hear the terror demon creeping up behind him.

 _No, not him._ Dorian hurled a fireball at the demon and watched in horror as it veered wide. Blackwall was halfway across the field slashing at a pride demon, and Solas was busy casting barrier on him. That left only one recourse. “Fiend!”

The demon rounded on him. Its hissing maw slung acid.

Dorian reached deep inside himself and drew on the direst reserves of his mana. He twirled his staff, twisting energy in a web of crackling electricity—

—only for the demon to bat it out of his hands like a toy.

Wonderful. He lifted his arms to cast fire, and the demon caught his wrists and bent them backward. Terrific! Delightful!

 _Well,_ _when in the land of barbarians._

He slammed his face against the demon's. His nose gave with a sickening _crunch_. The demon shrieked and released him, and the ground smacked hard against his chest. White stars spotted his vision, replaced by wet and red.

“Oh, did I hurt your feelings?!” Dorian pawed blindly in the grass until he found his staff. He reeled up and swung blindly until the focus stone connected with a meaty slap. "Let daddy kiss it better for you!" 

He might have cudgeled it to death like that, if a sudden tidal wave of magic had not washed over them. The flash and crash of the rift closing was almighty and hot and reeking of raw mana—and then slowly the waves subsided, and the demon disintegrated into desultory wisps back into the Fade. 

Dorian's legs gave out. He allowed them to fold and held his aching head between his hands. It was, admittedly, hard to focus on anything else with the Veil rippling around him like an upset bath.

“All right down there, mage?” Blackwall's heavy footfalls thudded up behind him. He gave Dorian an entirely unwelcome clap on the shoulder. “I saw you swatting at the smaller pests while we tackled the big laughing one.”

“Yes, we were engaged in a fascinating debate on…” Dorian squinted. “…the proper way to bow to your dance partner....”

“Your face.”

Dorian craned his neck back. Trevelyan stood over him with his staff, the dappled light of the forest playing on the hood that covered his bald head. The Anchor hissed like an angry cat in his palm.

“My what now?” asked Dorian.

“Your. Face.”

Dorian touched his nose and winced as shooting pains stabbed into his eyes. Drops of blood ran down his chin into the grass in a piddling stream.

Oh. That did hurt.

“Simply testing a hypothesis.” Dorian pinched his nostrils shut. “Are terror demons _actually_ made of terror or a similar, terror-like substance—“

He rocked off the ground and instantly regretted it. The movement sent horrifying nausea up his throat and dragged him back to his knees.

All right, that hurt a lot.

Solas padded his way down the hill to them. “Dorian diverted the attention of the demon that was flanking you. With his nose.”

“No need to be a tattletale,” muttered Dorian.

"You do know that when you headbutt someone you're supposed to use the top of your head?" said Blackwall. 

"Why _thank you_. I'll consider that the next time I'm charging at my enemies like a...." His vision darkened at the edges. He managed to catch himself with both hands, and a moment later both they and they grass between them were covered in warm vomit.   

“Let me have a look at you.” Trevelyan knelt down beside him.

“I assure you, I'm quite fine." Dorian burped. "I can make it until we reach camp." 

“Yes, because any Freemen we run into will be more than understanding. Blackwall, Solas, head up the ridge and watch the trail. Dorian, sit down and stop acting like a child.”

Dorian sighed and reluctantly complied. After giving a few more instructions to Solas and Blackwall and sending them up the hill, Trevelyan retrieved his pack and used it as a cushion to sit beside him.

"Oof." Trevelyan pried Dorian's hands away from his face. "That's definitely broken."

It was increasingly difficult for Dorian to form witty remarks through the throb in his skull....at least until cool, minty light radiated from Trevelyan's palm and seeped into his sinuses. He sighed in relief. “Thank you….”

“Don’t thank me until I hand you a mirror,” said Trevelyan.

"I happen to be a fan of mirrors, and they happen to be a fan of me."

"There's one in the Black Emporium that might disagree with you. From what I understand, the idea is to stand in front of it and mush around your face until you feel better about yourself. Given the state of your nose right now, it might be just what we need..."

"Now you're just trying to rattle me."

"Me? Rattle Ser Dorian the Brave and Cunning, most recently of Minrathous? Perish the thought."  

Trevelyan pushed his hood back with his free hand. His eyebrows scrunched together as leaned forward, rubbing the cool tips of his fingers up and down the bridge of Dorian's nose as if to coax it back into shape.

“By the way, thanks for getting that demon off my back,” he murmured. "I should have been paying more attention."

"Always happy to look out for your backside, Inquisitor.”

He meant it as a light flirtation, but Dorian's voice trailed off into silence.

In the aftermath of the battle, the Emerald Graves was almost serene. Birds with bright plumage trilled high in the canopy above, leaves somersaulted through the air to fall quietly on the forest floor, and all sorts of wretched nature teemed in the air and grass around them.     

It was almost enough to distract Dorian from the fact that he'd never been this close to Trevelyan. 

Not that he and the Inquisitor were unfriendly with each other, oh no, they were merely....cautious. The nearest they had ever come was after the mess at Redcliffe with his father, when the Inquisitor had approached him in Skyhold's library.

Dorian had been.... _shattered_ was a good word for it. He had barely been aware of Trevelyan at the time. It wasn't until he uttered five horrible little words that Dorian had truly, _truly_ become aware of him in the worst way possible:

 _"I think you're very brave."_  

In another life, Dorian might have kissed the Inquisitor right then and there in the Skyhold library in front of everyone, but the moment had passed, and he had let him walk away.

Before that moment, he would have been content to see the Inquisitor as a friend and colleague and nothing more. Now he went to bed every night wondering what it would be like if, instead of letting Trevelyan leave the library, he had pulled that long, lean body against his own, run his fingers over the expanse of Trevelyan's smooth head and asked, _must you continue to steal_ _Solas's haircut?_   just to hear him laugh and see that wicked smile-

_Kiss him._

It was ridiculous. They were both covered in blood and ichor....but it would be so simple. Lean forward and let gravity would do the rest. Tip, fall, pucker, bliss. All it would take was a few inches and his face would press against Trevelyan’s, and their lips would meet.  

Trevelyan’s eyes flicked up. “Dorian? Does it hurt?”

“Not at all, Inquisitor,” he said, and tried to ignore the cold canyon opening up inside him. Trevelyan conjured a warm ball of energy over Dorian's face, gave his nose a little tug, and smiled.

“Come on," he said, shouldering his pack and offering a hand. "Before Solas and Blackwall start getting ideas.”

 _Yes_ , thought Dorian, with an ache spreading down to his bones. _We wouldn’t want that._

 

* * *

 

A few days later, Trevelyan declared their excursion a bust.  

After all, they'd only secured the area, exorcised a haunted mansion, slain a dragon, slaughtered a host of Freemen, uncovered the heritage of a sullen Orlesian named Fairbanks who rode in silence with them all the way back to Skyhold-but noooo, they hadn't located the shipping manifests to find Samson's lair, ergo time to pack up, ride home, and try again some other day. 

To say Dorian felt exhausted as they rode through the gates of Skyhold was a profound understatement. 

Not that the Inquisitor got any reprieve. Cullen and Charter crowded him the moment he stepped off his red hart and accompanied him directly the war room. Dorian handed off his mount's reins to the stable boy and trudged up the staircase that led to his quarters at the back of the west wing. He peeled off his stinking armor, tossed his staff into its cradle, and did not wake until late until late afternoon the next day.

Life returned to its dull routine after that. 

The ball at the Winter Palace was still some ways off, and even if it wasn't, Dorian's expertise was neither needed nor sought after. He woke late, took his breakfast with the servants (their mistrust of him meant that he got an entire table to himself), and devoted himself to reading. From time to time he wandered the gardens and endured the quaint "evil eyes" thrown his way by some of the more rustic castle herbalists. Cassandra spared him a few kind words, as did Cole, but mostly he tended to himself.

Of Trevelyan, he saw very little.

He certainly heard him—the scuff of his boots on the rotunda floor, the murmur of his voice as he conversed with Solas, his hoarse proclamations from the great hall….

If anything, it made Dorian bury himself deeper in his work. Or at least try to. His efforts to unearth Corypheus’s true name had hit a wall, and there was only so much he could do until his requested books from the Minrathous archives arrived. Until then, he was left scouring dry-as-dirt compendiums and training in the practice yard. Few mages among the rebels wished to spar with him, and so in his lowest points of boredom he went through his paces alone until his gaze turned inevitably to the Inquisitor’s tower.

It was all in vain. No matter how he diverted himself, his mind drifted back to the moment in the Graves.

One morning, Dorian flipped listlessly through the pages of the tome on Nevarran necromancy and turned to the library window. The inner bailey was nearly empty. The only passersby were Master Dennett as he led the bog unicorn across the yard, and Josephine as she quickly steered a curious masked countess away from the sight of the dead horse. With that quaint image, Dorian shut his eyes, and let himself fall into what, to innocent eyes, was a mid-afternoon nap.

To not-so-innocent eyes, there was a reason he kept the open book in his lap. 

He replayed the scene over in his head as he had for days: the sighing trees, the shifting green shadows, the Inquisitor sliding a gloved hand up his neck to cup the back of his head-

 _He did not cup the back of your head,_  murmured an evil little voice in the back of his mind. 

 _Oh shoo_. _Is it so bad to wish things had turned out differently?_

_And how exactly would things have turned out differently, Dorian Pavus?_

It was a very good question.

For all his hopeful ardor, he didn't even know if the Inquisitor desired him. Oh, the man had been kind to him, but he was kind to everyone. He gave the servant who emptied his chamber pot the same courtesy he did to the Empress of Orlais, to say nothing of the comity he visited upon an outcast Tevinter altus.

And yet...

When Dorian had first arrived in Haven, it had been the Herald who had personally ordered the Templars to stop circling him like vultures. Two days later, he'd offered Dorian a wool blanket after it became clear he'd been given a dirty tablecloth by the requisition officer.

For weeks and months onward, Trevelyan asked him about his favorite cafes in Minrathous, indulged his long rants on Orlesian fashion, took seriously his concerns about Alexius's wellbeing while he served the rebel mages, and after what happened in Redcliffe with his father....he had certainly done for Dorian more than anyone else had in the South. Maybe more than anyone had done for him in years.

Was it so insane to imagine that there might be mutual interest between them?

He sighed. The predictable, pathetic fantasy was dragging him down again, and predictably, pathetically, he followed it. 

Trees. Dirt. Terrible nature. The only difference was that now, in this version of events, Dorian listened to his gut and pressed his and Trevelyan's lips together.

He felt the intake of breath, the surprised inhale that stirred the hairs of his mustache, and then the brush of lashes as Trevelyan closed his eyes and leaned in.

From there, it was a desire demon's feast: the thump of Trevelyan’s back hitting the grass, the scrape of his heel as he drew a long leg up, the warmth of his stomach as Dorian slid a hand under his tunic and pressed his weight on top of him. All while he kissed him: deep, desperate kissing like drinking salt water, each sip only darkening his thirst. Trevelyan’s long fingers slid through his hair. A whimper escaped his throat as Dorian caressed him that no one else in the Inquisition would ever hear—secret, fragile, human, the sound of a man, not an icon, not a great holy hope, just a man in his arms, turning his head to let Dorian kiss the pale river of his throat.

The same tender hands that had healed Dorian touched him tenderly everywhere.

He should have returned to his quarters right there and then to rub out the problem and get over this miserable crush….but the only thing he felt was cold. All he wanted was to be noticed and held, and he knew from experience that that was the most dangerous sign of all. 

“Excuse me, Monsieur Pavus?”

He opened an eye to find Mother Giselle standing over him.

Marvelous.

 

* * *

 

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing."

“I’m being clucked at by a hen, evidently.” Dorian tugged a random book off the shelf and tossed it on the desk. 

“Don’t play the fool with me, young man—”

"If I wanted to play the fool I can be rather more convincing, I assure you!" 

Mother Giselle's eyes narrowed. Back home, he would have considered it a point of pride to have ruffled the sanctimonious feathers of the clergy, but here was merely wearied. He'd suffered no shortage of suspicious glares and cold shoulders since he'd given up everything to help these people, and despite what he assured the Inquisitor, even he had his limits.

Especially when it came to this matter. 

"Your glib tongue does you no credit," said Giselle. "Nor does your denial of what is plain for everyone to see." 

"You'll have to clarify that, my dear, I'm terribly nearsighted."

"I speak of your physical relationship with the Inquisitor."  

"Madame." Dorian slammed his hand on the desk. "If I had so much as straightened the _lapel_ of our dear Inquisitor, I guarantee there would be far worse than an elderly chantry mother marching up the stairs to claim my head."

He liked to think it was his wit that took her momentarily aback. More likely it was the strained timbre of his voice....or even more likely the sound of familiar footsteps climbing the stairs behind him.

"What's going on here?" asked Trevelyan.

"It would seem the revered mother is concerned about my undue influence over you," said Dorian lightly, folding his arms. 

"Your Worship," said Mother Giselle. "This man is of Tevinter. His presence at his side, the rumors alone....it is just concern." 

Trevelyan's eyes slid between them. They were amused and impartial as ever, though Dorian wondered if there wasn't the beginning of irritation there as well. Whom it was directed at, however, was hard to say. 

"What's wrong with him being from Tevinter? Specifically?" said Trevelyan.

"I'm fully aware that not everyone from the Imperium is the same. However, there are those among the faithful who will take issue with your close association with a Tevinter mage, considering that we are at war with-"

"Tevinter mages?" offered Trevelyan. 

"Better question," said Dorian. "Should I be surprised that the Chantry refuses to acknowledge the difference between present day Tevinter and the Tevinter of over a thousand years ago, or should I just accept that as your _modus operandi_?" 

Giselle's lips thinned at that. "I do not doubt Lord Pavus's allegiance to the Inquisition," and here she lowered her voice to limit what she said next to the three of them, "but given that you have also allied us with the rebels, it might be beneficial to limit associations with....Imperial parties."

Trevelyan tilted his head. "I wasn't aware you had elevated yourself to my war council, Revered Mother."

"I would never presume, Your Worship."

"I must ask, what manner of rumors are these exactly? I'll need to hear specifics if I'm to judge them for myself."

"I....could not repeat them."

"The fact that your face matches the color of your wimple tells me you already have. Enjoy the rest of your day, Mother Giselle."

Giselle hesitated, clearly expecting more, and when none she came bowed stiffly and made her way out of the rotunda. Fiona, who had been reading the same page for the past twenty minutes at a nearby bookshelf, cleared her throat as she passed. 

"Well, that was something," said Dorian.

"She didn't get to you, did she?" asked Trevelyan. 

"No," lied Dorian. "It takes more to get to me than thinly-veiled accusations."

Trevelyan studied him. He nodded toward the bookshelves, and Dorian followed him into the rows of dusty reference. 

"She's not wrong," said Trevelyan, leaning against the library wall. "People do get upset when I come talk to you."

Dorian felt a swoop of nausea that almost made him turn back around. Somehow, he managed to keep his voice level. "And yet you persist. How iconoclast."

Trevelyan shrugged. "A year ago, every last person in this castle would have cheered to see me hanged as the man who murdered Divine Justinia, and before that few among them would have hidden me when the Templars came hunting. They can whisper all they want."

Even now, Trevelyan didn't appear bitter, though perhaps he was just better at hiding it. If anything, the fact that he universally distrusted almost everyone in the castle seemed amusing to him. Maybe the world was a funny place when you were a southern mage and everyone who wanted you dead suddenly had your best interest at heart.

"You must know, I didn't join the Inquisition to make trouble for you," said Dorian.

"Not even a little? Now you're just trying to disappointment me."

"Disappoint you? Ser Trevelyan the Bald and Witty? Never."

Trevelyan smirked at that. It did awful things to Dorian's heart. It also made him uncomfortably aware how close they were standing to each other in the dusty warmth of the shelves. 

Dorian swallowed. "I don't know if you're aware, but the rumors floating in some corners is that you and I are....intimate." 

"And here I thought she was talking about our secret knitting club. Damn."

"You're not bothered by such suggestions?"

Trevelyan's smirk faded. "Suggestions that I might be involved with the one person in this castle who doesn't judge me at every turn? No, they don't bother me at all."

Dorian's heart thundered. He took a step forward. "Is that the only reason?"

The apple of Trevelyan's throat was remarkably overactive. It bobbed up and down as he swallowed. "You tell me."

"You're incapable of giving anyone a straight answer, aren't you?"

"Apostates, we're terrible like that."  

"Would you like me to demonstrate instead?"

"If you're offering to stop being evasive first...." 

It was all the permission Dorian needed.

He liked to think that what happened next was because the floor was uneven, or, better yet, because Trevelyan lunged forward at the exact same moment that he did. Perhaps some subconscious part of his mind had at last taken the advice about headbutting that Blackwall had offered him back in the Graves.

In any case, Dorian surged forward with closed eyes and puckered lips-

And heard a crack as his head connected with Trevelyan's nose.

 

* * *

 

“Dorian, it’s fine, look, the bleeding’s stopped.”

Trevelyan sat in the red library chair with bloody handkerchiefs stuffed up his nostrils. Fiona and Mother Giselle hovered over him like twin patron saints of insufferable motherhood, Fiona pressing an ice spell to his nose and Mother Giselle's eyes burning two holes into Dorian’s face.

"Still, I feel the need to apologize again," said Dorian. "It was an unfortunate accident." 

“I’m still not sure someone manages to break the Inquisitor’s nose accidentally....” said Fiona.

"It's quite all right." Trevelyan waved her away. "Thank you, everyone, for the assistance, but I assure you, I can take it from here. It's hardly my first broken nose."

"The first given to you by an ally, I wonder?" Fiona walked away before she could receive an answer. Mother Giselle gave Dorian one last viperous look, then clasped her hands and bowed out, her long gown swishing on the stone floor behind her.

Trevelyan watched them go, then lit up his own hand and, with a sickening crunch, jerked his nose back into place. 

"You really weren't joking," said Dorian.

"I once sneezed so hard I smacked my face on a first-edition of Genitivi's _Stone Halls of the Dwarves_. Such are life's perils." Trevelyan tugged out the handkerchiefs. "You can stop looking guilty anytime you want now."

"I'd hoped that...." Dorian wrung his hands. "Well, obviously...."

"You went to kiss me and headbutted me instead," said Trevelyan. "It happens." 

Dorian sighed. "Perhaps we might speak plainly, amatus?" Did he really just say that? "Things have obviously been tenuous between us since Redcliffe."

"Have they?"

Dorian sighed. He had a feeling the two of them would putter around the issue for the rest of their lives if need be. Time for a bold charge. 

"I'm simply curious as to your intentions. If banter and flirting are what you desire, I'm more than qualified for it."

"It's not," said Trevelyan. "But yes, you are." 

"Companionship then? Friendship? I'm a bit out of practice-"

"Dorian." Trevelyan took a long time wiping the dried blood from his face. "Stop being a fool and come here." 

After a moment of hesitation, Dorian placed his hands on the arms of the chair and leaned in. Trevelyan pulled him close and kissed him.

A rush of disconnected memories flowed through Dorian's mind--the sun on his neck as he walked through his family's olive orchards in Qarinus, the crackle of foil as his mother unwrapped a chocolate bonbon, the laughing foam of the Boeric Sea dragging around his bare ankles before he dove under the waves at dawn....Trevelyan carefully pulled back when it was over, and smiled.

"For the record...." Trevelyan swallowed, and his tender eyes for the first time became truly, honestly tender. "I'd like nothing better than for you to make those floating rumors fact, Dorian Pavus." 

"Oh for-" Dorian went in for a kiss again, fully aware of Trevelyan cupping the back of his head and utterly indifferent to the whispers buzzing around them. There was only the feeling of his soul seeping out of his body like clean water down a drain, and the blissful, airy peace left behind as Trevelyan pulled back and his stubble rasped against his cheek. 

"Let's try not to break anything next time," the Inquisitor whispered.

Dorian chuckled. "Better remind me again, in case I forget."


End file.
